Photo: die.wildbach
Forest land use planning
To be able to guarantee the multiple functions of the forests, such as protection, economic utilisation, recreation or well-being, a foresighted planning is required. Forest Development Plan (FDP), Hazard Zone Plan (HZP) and Forest Plan (FP) are the most important planning instruments of forest land use planning.
What is a Forest Development Plan?The Forest Development Plan (FDP) presents and describes the whole of Austria’s forests. It is the most important tool for assessing the forest functions.
Pursuant to the provisions of the Austrian Forest Act, the forest functions as defined in its Section II are demarcated as “function areas” on the basis of expert opinions provided by the provincial forest services and then entered into a working map. The four key functions of the forest are its economic, protective, beneficial and recreational effects.
Since 1990 the FDP has been available for all Austria. It is available for inspection by the public at all district administrative authorities, at the Provincial forest administrations as well as at the Forest Department of the Ministry of Life.
The FDP is also increasingly being used as a planning instrument for matters of general land use, traffic and other resource planning.
What is a Hazard Zone Plan?
The Hazard Zone Plan (HZP) is prepared by the Forest Engineering Service in Torrent and Avalanche Control. The HZP reflects the hazard to which living and transport areas are exposed as a result of torrents, avalanches, mudflow, and erosion.
The floods of the years 1965/1966 in Carinthia and East Tyrol gave rise to the development of the Hazard Zone Plans. The legal bases can be found in the Austrian Forest Act of 1975 and in an Ordinance on Hazard Zone Plans of the Federal Minister for Agriculture and Forestry.
Especially in the alpine area, where protected settlement areas are very scarce, but settlement pressure is high, HZPs form an indispensable part of land use planning and the planning of control measures. These control measures may be avalanche or torrent defence works. HZPs are also a valuable planning support for the local zoning plans.
Hazard zones are determined taking into account a disaster event with a return period of 150 years and more frequent events. The plans show the red and the yellow hazard zones as well as reference areas.
A draft Hazard Zone Plan is prepared by the Forest Engineering Service in Torrent and Avalanche Control; this draft is then for four weeks available for public inspection and opinions at the communal administrative authority. After that time, a commission checks the draft taking into account the opinions. The approval is granted by the Federal Minister for Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management.
The delimitation of the hazard zones is adjusted if the conditions in a catchment area change, if there are new findings as a result of disasters, or after control measures.
The Hazard Zone Plan is available for inspection at the communal administrative authority, at the district administrative authority, at the Provincial Government, and at the regional headquarters of the Forest Engineering Service in Torrent and Avalanche Control.
What is a Forest Plan?
As a third tool of forest land use planning the Forest Plan (FP, in German: “Waldfachplan”) is worked out on the initiative of the person managing the respective forest.
Due to Austria’s accession to the European Union in 1995 further forest planning instruments became necessary, for example for programmes like Natura 2000 or for the implementation of EU Directives like the Water Framework Directive.
In cooperation with forest practitioners, the Ministry of Life developed a Draft Framework for the Forest Plan (FP). Several pilot projects on thematic fields which partly went far beyond the functions of forestry were carried out. There are pilot projects on the topics “Protection forest”, “Forest and water”, “Forest and Natura 2000”, “Cross-enterprise farm-based forest management”, “Forest – Culture”, “Forest – Game”, or “Tourism”.
15.02.2008,